The Federal Judge in the Manafort case is not messing around.
Judge T.S. Ellis lost his temper Friday in a Manafort hearing and accused Mueller’s prosecutors of using the case against Trump’s former campaign chairman to oust the President from office.
Mueller’s wheels are falling off.
CNN reported:
“You don’t really care about Mr. Manafort’s bank fraud,” District Judge T.S. Ellis said to prosecutor Michael Dreeben, at times losing his temper. Ellis said prosecutors were interested in Manafort because of his potential to provide material that would lead to Trump’s “prosecution or impeachment,” Ellis said.“That’s what you’re really interested in,” said Ellis, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan.
Judge Ellis also ordered the government to hand over the unredacted Rosenstein memo.
The Judge told Mueller’s prosecutors, “We don’t want anyone with unfettered power.”
Mueller’s prosecutors argued they have certain authorities given to them which were laid out in Rosenstein’s August 2017 memo.
Judge Ellis scoffed at Mueller’s prosecutors who argued the memo has to be kept a secret because of ongoing investigations and ordered the unredacted memo to be released within a two week time frame.
Fox News reported:
Mueller’s team says its authorities are laid out in documents including the August 2017 scope memo – and that some powers are actually secret because they involve ongoing investigations and national security matters that cannot be publicly disclosed.
Ellis seemed amused and not persuaded.
He summed up the Special Counsel’s Office as, “We said this was what [the] investigation was about, but we are not bound by it and we were lying.”
He referenced the common exclamation from NFL announcers, saying: “C’mon man!”
The judge also gave the government two weeks to hand over the unredacted “scope memo” or provide an explanation why not — after prosecutors were reluctant to do so, claiming it has material that doesn’t pertain to Manafort.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Ellis said.
On Monday, the Assistant Attorney General said in a letter that the DOJ would not be handing over the unredacted Rosenstein memo detailing Mueller’s scope.
In response, Freedom Caucus Chairman, Mark Meadows drafted “articles of impeachment” against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein as a “last resort.”
On Tuesday, Rosenstein freaked and referred to the impeachment threat as “extortion.”
On Wednesday morning, in response to the stonewalling by the DOJ, Trump threatened to use his presidential powers in order to get the unredacted Rosenstein memo.
